[1801.00.00]

18.01 - Cocoa beans, whole or broken, raw or roasted. Cocoa beans are the seeds, contained in large numbers (25 to 80), in the fruit (cocoa-pod) of the cacao-tree (neobroma cacao). They are of flat ovoid form, generally violet or reddish in colour. They consist of a tough, brittle shell, and a very thin whittsh inner husk or skin covering the kernel and dividing it into several sections. In order to reduce their slightly bitter taste, to develop the aroma and to facilitate shelling, the beans are fermented; the may alternatively be steam treated and dried. They are roasted to facilitate removal of the s ells, to render the kernels more fiiable, to concentrate theproduct and improve the flavour and aroma. They are then passed through corm ated rollers whtch break up the beans and detach the gems; subsequent processes separate the s ells, husks and germs from the broken pieces of kernels (cocoa nibs). Z fl The heading covers raw or roasted beans, whole (whether or not separated from their shells, husks, skins or germs) or broken. The heading does not include : (a) Shells, husks, skins and other cocoa waste (heading 18.02). (b) Cocoa beans ground to paste (heading 18.03).